Analysis of Surge Propagation with Lightning Arrester using FDTD for 25 kV-AC Transmission Line

Kokiat Aodsup, Thanatchai Kulworawanichpong

This paper analyzes lightning surge propagation and reflection as the surge arrives at a lightning arrester. Telegraphist equations have been used to characterize the voltage and current of a travelling wave in a lossless power transmission line and finite difference time domain (FDTD) method has been used to analyze lightning surge propagation. The characteristics of the reflected wave and transmitted wave have been compared in two cases: (i)using silicon carbide (SiC) arrester, and (ii)using metal oxide varistor (MOV) arrester.  The results have shown that, reflected and transmitted waves from the MOV arrester are almost equal in magnitude to those from the SiC arrester, however, the former is more preferable because it has a smoother waveform.